Fuel poverty action – time to warm up! Noon Friday 27 Jan @ St Paul’s

Its time to take it to the corporations that are freezing us out. Meet 12 noon Friday 27 January 2012 at the steps of St Paul’s. Bring hot water bottles, flasks, and your ideas for a better world.

One in every four people in the UK will struggle to heat their homes this winter. In 2010 over 2,700 people died in the winter because of high bills, low incomes, and draughty, poorly insulated housing. Meanwhile climate change from fossil fuels is already killing 300,000 a year, and impoverishing many more. more.

That’s why the Energy Equity and Environment working group of Occupy London are taking part in a long weekend of “winter warm-ups” organized by Fuel Poverty Action.

Anyone who can’t afford to heat their home should be able to go into a nice warm place and make themselves at home. That’s just what people will be doing, from tomorrow, in Leeds, Cambridge, Oxford, and several parts of London.

We will not stand aside while unaccountable companies rake in the profits and allow our human right to energy to be privatised and turned into a commodity. We strive for a world where sustainable energy sources are the norm, where solar and other forms of responsible energy are encouraged and the corporate greed-driven companies that are putting profit before people are a thing of the past.

Facts

The UK’s energy system is dominated by six big energy companies – EDF, EON, Centrica (British Gas), Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern and NPower – who have a monopoly over how the UK’s energy is sourced, produced and priced.

Our planet is being exploited for coal, gas and oil at an alarming rate. New sources, like the vast Tar Sands excavations in Canada, and “fracking” the earth to reach pockets of gas, are even more damaging to the climate, the local environment, and people who live there. Yet this is where banks and the energy companies are choosing to invest the money we give them.

Local renewable energy projects can be entirely self-sufficient and even sell back to the National Grid.

Islington Council, the home of one Occupy London site in Finsbury Square, has recently announced a plan to put solar panels on the roofs of its council estates.

As Occupy London has said, “With its relentless pursuit of profit at all cost, the present corporate system fits the definition of a psychopath, driving the rapid destruction of our society and the natural environment. This is done only to benefit a small minority and not the needs of the 99 per cent.”

Keeping warm in winter is not a luxury, nor is preserving a planet we can live on. However, energy companies amassed £9 billion in unearned profits under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and we spent £850 billion on bailing out the banks. We just need to change our priorities: instead of lining the pockets of banks and corporations, we need to keep people warm and the climate safe.

Come and join us!

From the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral we will move off to warm ourselves up inside. You might like to dress for a nice warm place at the heart of the establishment. Don’t forget to bring your hottie and a flask, and maybe a shawl to help keep you warm…

About Press Release

The energy problem is an absolutely worrying matter that becomes more and more wide. The solution is definitely not to be given now. It is impossible to make something so wide, be solved so quickly.
So what we should think about and what actually this small event is talking about is a way to demonstrate in order to solve the problem as soon as possible; in the nearby future maybe.
Looking five years from now, speculating how energy will be then ‘sold’ to people, is this the way to create a satisfactory ground for the fuel matter? What changes the problem through this kind of ‘protest’ ?
How can you persuade the strictest and most absolute group of people called the state, to change?
I don’t really see the way this ‘protest’ results in anything.
I would like to hear someone explaining to me how it can provide a next, nearby generation with energy/fuel sufficiency.
Thanks